Wednesday, September 18, 2013

Anyone who has read this blog for an extended period of time will remember my obsession with Evans's nursery decorating. It pretty much consumed all my time for four months but in the end was totally worth it. With baby GIRL arriving in January I needed to start thinking about switching some things up in the nursery. First line of business was to get Evans' new big boy room situated. Thankfully we had two extra spare bedrooms on the 4th floor of our house (yes, 4th floor, God help me if Evans' ever falls asleep in the car and requires carrying upstairs). One room became the playroom (which one day I'll post pictures of the finished product, when I actually finish it) and the large guest room is now Evans' new play wonderland. The above picture is how the room looked to our guests who have stayed with us over the years. The room will continue to serve as the guest room when we have people come to stay however, they will have to deal with the train theme that has replaced the plain-ness.

The process of getting this room ready to redecorate was not without obstacles. When we moved in here four years ago the military issued us several of these hideous, large, disgusting "schranks". They are free standing closets because German geniuses don't have built in closets. Except when Georg (remember him?) built our house 30 years ago, he actually WAS a genius and therefore we DO have closets. We took the schranks from the base as extra storage but as the years have gone by, they have eventually ended up stuffed in this corner, in the last space available in the furthest corner of the house. These were the topic of several hot debates in our household. Do we keep them or lose them? Move them down to our basement and use as storage or call the base to come haul them away? After weeks and weeks of discussion I made the final decision that if I wanted them moved to the basement, I would need to get a different husband. Back to the base they went. No love lost.

So we had just a little bit of a disaster as I prepared to paint the entire room (including 15ft ceilings).

I really really wanted to sand all this natural wood and paint it a color to go with the train theme but Deaner vetoed this idea saying that "it wouldn't look right" and that I "might not know what I was doing". I guess we will never know. I am quite thrilled with the way that the room turned out. After a fresh coat of paint (it's sort of irritating that y'all can't tell how much better it looks since it is white) everything looked refreshed. Since Evans has had a small obsession with trains for the better part of his short life, it was the obvious theme.

I could not be more thrilled with how the bedding from Pottery Barn Kids turned out. I bought this bedding when we were home at Christmas after much hemming and hawing but I love it. I bought navy sheets to match and I'm currently looking for some nice cozy flannel sheets for our subarctic winters. You can see the one thing that doesn't match in the room but the Lightning McQueen light fixture was a must (and I couldn't find a train light).

I love the train station clock that we ordered from Hobby Lobby and mounted on the exposed beam. The light fixtures are train station-esque and I found them at the German equivalent to Home Depot for seven euro a piece. A steal, in my opinion. The canvas above the bedside table was done by my awesome friend Melinda at The Tiny b. She originally painted it for Evans' second birthday party but it's perfect next to his new bed.

I can't wait to see the name canvas that she is painting for baby girl. Stay tuned for that one.

After a small debate (my mother didn't think it was a good idea) we moved Evans' train table into his room from the play room next door. I partially made the decision because I think that the table makes the room and partially because we need the space in the playroom to set up the single bed that will be Evans' temporary home while we have guests. Either way, he loves it and hardly ever wants to come downstairs these days.

The last great part of the new room are these vintage train posters that I found on ebay. They look awesome on what would otherwise be a big blank wall. They are train line advertisement for different lines in Europe. I love them! The huge wooden choo-choo from Buddy and Susie for E's 2nd birthday also has a home on top of the armoire.

Yes, that is our new "eye in the sky". Otherwise known as the new video monitor we finally broke down and bought. With Evans being on a different floor than us and not caged into a crib anymore, we need to make sure there is no night wandering going on.

All and all I am super pumped with how it all turned out. We moved Evans up for his first night in his new room on Monday night. It was rough going and after three trips upstairs I finally fell asleep with him and we had a slumber party. The next afternoon he cried and cried to go back into his crib and I let him. Tuesday evening Evans informed Deaner that the reason he would not sleep in his new bed is because he was very scared of the.........wait for it.........alarm clock on his bedside table. Really? The clock? We made a big production of taking the alarm clock out of his room, he announced he was no longer scared and he went straight down without a peep. Go figure. Deaner has since figured out that the first night we spoke to Evans over the new monitor two way talk feature, telling him to lie down, and he thought it was the alarm clock talking to him. Needless to say we will NOT be talking to him again through the monitor. :) We are all set for night three and are hoping for a repeat of good behavior. There were a few attempted jail breaks today during nap but I'm hoping it was an isolated incident. Maybe one of these days I'll get around to blogging about the rest of our trip to Provence! We'll see!